By Jonathan Leask  January 14 2010

The Lake Hood open water swim hosted by the Ashburton Trust swim team that was scheduled for Saturday has been cancelled.

The move to cancel the event came after the application for the lake to be closed for the event was denied by the Lake Hood management committee.

 “We essentially cancelled the swim because we couldn’t get the whole lake closed which meant health and safety risk with other users,” event organiser Carl Gordon said. “They offered us half the lake but that meant we still had to police the other boats and it posed too much of a risk.”

 The Ashburton swimming club was unwilling to take the chance of a boat straying into the swimming area, and neither was the lake committee.

 “It was an obvious health and safety risk as it is hard to enforce a boundary and police that part of the lake,” lake hood management committee spokesman Bryan Donaldson said.

 The decision was made by Gordon to cancel the event due to the safety risks but it was a decision he was not all to happy to make.

 “We only needed a few hours. Start at eight and all done by lunch time. We were looking to make it an annual event as it would be perfect timing leading into the open water nationals.”

 The frustration came when the committee ruled that they could not close the entire lake for the event during the peak boating season, Gordon said.

 “Open water swimming has a small window due to the climate. You can take a boat out any time. Boats get it every other day of the year and it’s only closed a few days a year for rowing. All we wanted was one morning,” Gordon said.

 He was also disappointed that the region may miss out on the opportunity to host what he saw would be an invaluable annual open water swim event.

 “Last week it was closed all day for 23 boats from an out of town club. We had 26 members from one club coming up from Dunedin alone. Not to mention entries from Christchurch, Nelson, Marlborough and all over the place.” Gordon said.

 The committee had a number of reservations about the event that led to the eventual decision to only allow half the lake to be closed.

 “Initially they asked for half the lake and we were fine with that. But then they requested the full use of the lake and we had to make the tough call,” Donaldson said. “Its difficult to explain why they can’t use they entire lake but then again half the lake also poses problems.”

 The event has been cancelled this year but there is hope for it to run next year with the Ashburton swim team set to re-apply for next year.

 But the same issues will probably still stand in the way.

 “There are ways around it and we will encourage them to explore ways around it,” Donaldson said. “Hopefully we get a resolution next year.”